The whole op was a complete and utter disaster.
Starting with the late arrival of our contact—a bleeding and now dead contact—and ending with the agent I was supposed to be covering getting shot. And if I knew anything about Dan, it was that he tended to overestimate his ability and underestimate his injury level.
Not that he wasn’t a talented member of the KTS team.
It was just that he was a man.
A slice of masculine deliciousness I’d tasted every inch of two years before—which so wasn’t the point. Because it wasn’t just that we’d scratched an itch together.
I liked him. Respected him.
Pretended to hate him when all I wanted to do was dive into his arms and have a repeat of that glorious week.
Dan was a male who didn’t subscribe to the notion of the Man Cold, wouldn’t be found moping in bed over some sniffles. He was a person I’d seen take serious internal damage and keep going until the mission was complete.
Some might say it was reckless.
And, I supposed, it probably was.
But I was right there with him, had pushed through instances when the circumstances had surpassed dangerous and moved into deadly, ignored times when I should have stopped or retreated. Dan had been there, at my back, had in fact pulled me out of several close scrapes . . . even though I’d hurt him.
I knew I had.
But I’d had to. There was no other choice, not with Dan.
He was too good for me to drag him into my special circle of Hell.
Still, that one week in Georgia haunted me.
It had started as a break between missions in the middle of summer, when he’d offered to show me part of the U.S. I hadn’t seen before. We’d driven through tiny towns, stopping at Dan’s small cabin set on a peach orchard, the air unbearably humid and rainstorms coming out of nowhere, drenching us in sheet after sheet of precipitation. It had stretched into us spending a week there, eating ripe peaches off the trees, juice dripping down our chins, getting drunk on whiskey and lemonade, and learning every inch of each other’s bodies.
For a full week, it had been bliss.
And then it had ended when my past had reminded me that I wasn’t good for him.
I was seriously fucked up, parts of me permanently broken, never to be reformed, and so . . . I’d made it crystal clear there could be no future.
I’d pretended nothing had changed between us.
Even though everything had changed.
After reality struck, I’d rebuffed him at every opportunity, pushed him away until he’d retreated. It hadn’t been easy, but I’d perfected locking down every soft feeling. And . . . we worked together. It was either get along, pretend there wasn’t anything between us, or move to a different team at KTS.
It was only after I’d threatened the last that he’d stopped pushing.
So, here we were.
On a mission, me pretending so hard to hate him, it almost seemed like reality. Except, of course, for the memories that wouldn’t stay locked away, the way my body remembered his, wanted him.
“Enough, Ava,” I whispered.
He’d saved my ass more than once, so I was going to return the favor. Maybe I wouldn’t ever be the type of woman who would hug him or tend to his boo-boos.
But I knew something about loyalty.
How important it was. How much it hurt when it wasn’t there.
I might not be a normal woman, had been shattered into too many pieces inside to ever have any hope of that, but I could be a good agent.
And I was a damned good sniper.
No shaking hands. No targets missed.
I sighted. I squeezed the trigger. They went down—
There.
I caught the flicker of movement, trained my sights on the target through my scope—it wouldn’t do to take out an innocent—and maybe it should have worried me, how detached I’d become to the killing that I barely gave the thought a consideration—and only a cavalier one at that—but I had a job to do that was more important than gentle emotions and civilian worries.
Get out alive.
Get Dan out alive.
Get the files back to headquarters.
Movement in the shadows. Closing in on Dan. Fuck. I wasn’t in a great position myself, had moved to get eyes on him, and now I was potentially exposed.
But my partner in this was a fucking sitting duck.
One that I’d told to stay there.
I had to take care of this.
Kneeling, I rested my rifle on a ledge on the upper story of the abandoned building. It was falling apart, didn’t offer much protection. But it was in the shadows, and I had a clear sight line.
I adjusted my glasses, the ones I despised having to wear, but the ones that also made it so I could site the enemy through my scope as he stepped closer to Dan, and my finger went to the trigger of my rifle, rested on the curved piece of metal.
A glint as the man extracted a weapon.
Another layer of FUBAR because I knew there were more bad guys around but hadn’t been able to pinpoint their locations.
The man took another step, and—
No more time.
Ready. Set. Squeezing the trigger slowly and steadily so as not to be surprised by the gun firing.
Pop.
“Move,” I hissed to myself the second the bullet was away.
My shot hit its target, and the man collapsed. But it was dark, and the moment I’d taken the shot, the flash of light emanating from the barrel of my rifle meant my position was compromised.
Pop. Pop. Pop.
The bullets collided with the wall behind me, ricocheting off the steel siding, sending tiny arrows of metal exploding into the air.
One sliced across my cheek, a slight burn of pain I barely felt.
Because I was flying.
Jumping down from my perch, landing on the ground in a crouch that both saved my knees from injury and made me a smaller target. Footsteps clattered on the concrete, closing in on me, but I’d spent years training for exactly these kinds of missions. I burst into movement, my rifle spun to rest on my back, a knife from the holster strapped to my calf already in my hand, and burst to my feet, erupting in a flurry of violence toward the first enemy to approach.
Not expecting a frontal attack, he stumbled back a step before engaging me in hand-to-hand combat.
But I’d already taken advantage of the opening my assault had given me.
A precise slice to the thigh had the man dropping to his knees. A strike to the back of his head knocked him unconscious.
I heard rather than saw him collapse because I was still moving.
Thunk.
My knife sunk into a throat as I dodged a blow from the left, reaching behind me at the same time and getting off two quick shots that bought me some time and space to assess.
Three more targets, and who the fuck knew if there were more in the warehouse. One thing was absolutely clear.
I needed to move.
I struck out—kicked and jabbed as frequently as I blocked and dodged.
And within thirty seconds, I’d dispatched the first two. But I struggled with the third, who was bigger and stronger and too damned quick. A blow to my ribs had me biting back a gasp of pain, and another to my cheek was less glancing than bruise-inducing.
It wasn’t, however, consciousness-stealing as I’d managed to dart back, to prevent it from hitting my temple.
My glasses clattered to the concrete, but luckily they were for distance rather than up close, so I kicked them to the side and retreated a few steps. Then ribs burning, breaths coming in controlled bursts, I gripped my rifle like a baseball bat and treated my pride and joy as I had always promised I wouldn’t . . .